How do theists reconcile disbelief in predestination with an omniscient deity?

Great Debates
122

If belief with a degree of certainty less than 100% cannot count as knowledge, then no empirical beliefs are knowledge. For I do not have 100% certainty about the past or present, either–I am pretty sure I had tacos for breakfast this morning, but it is quite possible that my memory is failing in some way that I’m not aware of.

So unless we want to say no empirical beliefs constitute knowledge, it seems like we have to admit beliefs that we’re not (100%) certain about as knowledge.

But your argument seems to be that we can’t know the future because we can’t be (100%) certain about it. I’ve just explained why that argument won’t work.

We know the sun will rise tomorrow. We believe it, we have good reasons to believe it, and it’s true–and it’s true for the same reasons as those which we’re basing our beliefs on. I don’t know what else you could ask for when it comes to knowledge. We can “know the future” as you put it.

And knowing the future doesn’t make the future necessary, any more than knowing the past makes the past necessary. I know what happened in the past, but it could have gone otherwise. Similarly, I know what will happen in the future, but it could have gone otherwise.

123

So then what’s the difference between a regular person and a self-professed fortune teller? Do you think that “knowing” something on the basis of past experience is equivalent to “knowing” something based on having metaphysical insight?

No we don’t if define knowledge as being the product of empirical insight, and belief as being the product of something else. So being able to predict that the sun will rise tomorrow comes close to knowledge because its derived from empirical observation. Predicting that Obama will be sick with the flu on January 30, 2014 is not based on empiricism and therefore is belief, not knowledge.

The rigor of these kinds of predictions are vastly different because of how they are derived. If God knows the future because he is omniscient and is the author of the story called Everything, then there is no way that we can do anything that he didn’t already know was going to happen.

Even if this is true (and of course I don’t think it is…your knowledge of the future is vastly less certain than your knowledge of the past, to such an extent that using the same word to describe your assessment of both is rather silly language-wise), we’re talking about an omniscient God who is perfect. So if what he knows about the future is subject to fallibility, then that kind of punches holes in the idea that he knows everything.

What a human can and can’t do is irrelevant because inherently our knowledge is imperfect.

124

Let me recapitulate the arguments here.

Here’s the argument that foreknowledge is incompatible with freedom:



0. Suppose God is omniscient.
   1. Suppose God believes X will do Y in the future.
      2. Suppose X will not do Y in the future.
         3. In that case, God was wrong to think X will do Y in the future.
         4. Line 3 is in contradiction with line 0.
      5. So we must deny line 2. X will do Y in the future.
   6. So then, we conclude that if god believes X will do Y in the future, then X will do Y in the future.
   7. Suppose the will of X is free with respect to whether or not X does Y.
      8. Then X might do Y, and X might not do Y.
      9. But from 6, we can see that if God believes X will do Y, it's not true that X might not do Y.
      10. So then, if God believes X will do Y, it's not true that X might do Y and X might not do Y.
      11. From lines 8 and 10, by *modus tollens*, we conclude that God doesn't believe X will do Y.
      12. Line 11 contradicts line 1.
   13. So we conclude that line seven is false: the will of X is not free with respect to wheteher or not X does Y.
14. So--if God is omniscient, then the will of X is not free with respect to wether or not X does Y.

The above, so far as I can tell, is the argument typically given (and given in this thread) against the compatibility of omniscience and freedom.

My response to the argument is to say that the move from line 6 to line 9 is invalid. We can’t conclude

“If God believes X will do Y, then it’s not true that X might not do Y”

from

“If God believes X will do Y, then X will do Y.”

That’s an invalid inference, and here’s my explanation as to why it’s invalid.

Suppose it’s true that if I believe the sun will rise tomorrow, then the sun will rise tomorrow. And it is true–for the sun will rise tomorrow, meaning if I believe it will rise tomorrow, it will rise tomorrow. (It will also rise if I don’t believe it, but that’s immaterial.)

So: If I believe the sun will rise, it will rise. This is true.

Yet we can’t conclude from this that if I believe the sun will rise, it’s not true that the sun might not rise tomorrow. That would be false. Just because I believe it, that doesn’t mean it might not happen.

So then, the inference from “If X believes Y will do Z, then Y will do Z” to “If X believes Y will do Z, then it’s not true that Y might not do Z” is an invalid inference. Meaning the argument above relies on an invalid inference, rendering the argument invalid.

Just because God believes people will do things only when those people really will do those things, we can’t conclude from this that those people couldn’t have possibly done anything else.

You mentioned the idea that God is the author of the story. That does yield an argument against free will. But it’s not an argument from God’s omniscience. Omniscience causes no problems for free will. If God is literally the author of all events, however, that might cause problems for free will. But this is not the topic of the thread.

125

God believes? Supposedly, God has actual foreknowledge of all events-he doesn’t “believe”.

126

Knowing is standardly concieved of as a kind of believing. (Specifically, knowing is believing something that is true, and believing it for the right reasons.)

Nothing about the word “believes” in the argument should be taken to imply fallibility.

127

When you say “in the future” in your logic pyramid, whose perspective are you using? X’s, or God’s? Because I’ve already argued that God’s omniscience is not predicated on prediction, but observation. So it’s less like me knowing that the sun will rise tomorrow, and more like me knowing that I will compose this post.

128

I don’t recall which side of the dispute you’re on, but if God’s "fore"knowledge is to be likened to observation rather than prediction, (which is a view I sympathize with,) then that makes my point much easier to make. For my observation that X is occuring by no means makes it necessary that X occur. I can see my colleague right now going to the break room. That doesn’t mean he had to do it–it’s just that he’s doing it. Similarly, ten seconds ago, God was able to see the very same event, and in the very same way, God’s seeing it didn’t mean it had to happen, just that it would happen.

129

I’m on your side, and Blaster Master’s.

130

Belief is what you do when you don’t know, and this a condition that doesn’t apply to an omniscient being. So straight out of the gate, I view your argument with skepticism.

At any rate, like I said before, I don’t think the arguments that have been presented against free will and an omniscience creator in this thread hold up. If there is incompatibility between the two, I think it has more to do with the idea that an omniscient God is responsible for creating us–including our personalities, our frailities, our ignorance, our animal brains–and yet he holds us accountable when our natural tendencies lead us to displease him.

Consider here the story of Adam and Eve. He made them to be curious and gullible creatures as evident by the ease in which the snake conned them, right? Given this, why would he put the Tree of Life within their reach, when he had to have known what would happen? Since analogies about parents have been popular in this thread, imagine a mother leaving their 2 year old alone in a room with an exposed electrical outlet and a few forks scattered on the floor. Sure, the child is perfectly "free: not go sticking the fork in the outlet, but this free will isn’t meaningful given how high the deck is stacked against them. The mother bears culpability here for the child’s electrocution because 1) she knows her child well enough to predict that this could happen given the right conditions and 2) she intentionally created the conditions that allowed it to happen.

131

Why, when foreknowledge of the future is brought up, examples of foreknowledge of the past are brought forward to show that there isn’t any conflict?

132

You seem to be ignoring that God, unlike you, see’s the future. If you see someone going to the break room, it has to be happening (present tense.) If you saw someone going to the break room an hour ago, it has to have happened, past tense. You don’t see anyone going into the break room an hour from now, so it doesn’t have to happen in the future. God dies see someone going into the breakroom an hour from now, so it has to happen just as in the other two cases which is within your mortal non-omniscient powers.

As for knowing. If you really know X, then if X is not true you really didn’t know X, and were mistaken. If the probability of X approaches unity closely enough that all but extreme skeptics say we know it, X not happening will be shocking but does not imply that a statement of knowing under this definition is false. We “know” the sun is going to come up tomorrow, but we also know that the sun is not going to come up forever.

You may “know” that your wife is coming home at 2:00, but not to the level that you know the sun is coming up. If she has a flat tire and doesn’t get in until 2:30 your world will not be rocked. So I doubt it is accurate to really say you know this. That she intends to come home at 2:00 pm, perhaps.

133

Because that’s the closest we can come to demonstrating how God knows the future - it’s the same way we know present and more perfect than our knowledge of the past. If Time was a number line with the present moment being zero, we can only see the zero. We can remember (or learn about) the past, points before zero on the line. God can see the entire number line at once.

134

Because there’s no relevant distinction. Knowing things doesn’t make their truth necessary, whether they happen in the past, present or future. Knowledge and necessity just don’t work like that.

135

Basically, the whole idea that knowledge of future events entails no free will rests on a fallacy:

Necessarily, if X then Y,
thereforee, if X, then necessarily Y.

That’s an invalid argument form, but arguments that knowledge of future events makes those events necessary rest on this invalid form.

From “neceessarily, if you know it then it’s true,” (a true proposition), you can’t infer "If you know it, then it’s necessarily true (a false proposition).

136

But time isn’t a number line that can be seen as a whole. Time is more like a brick wall that is being built by blind and drunk bricklayers without a blue print that cannot communicate with each other-you can see the wall that has been built but nobody, including the bricklayers, knows which direction that wall is heading.

137

Imagine you have a movie. A movie is nothing bunch a bunch of scenes strung together to make a story, right? Once a movie is created and released and viewed by the masses, that’s that. There’s no going back and reshooting scenes in the movie, without in effect creating an altogether different movie.

Following me so far?

Creation is a movie. Not only did God “shoot” the movie from start to finish, he also has viewed it so many times that he has the whole thing memorized. Because he’s not locked in by time, everything in Creation has already happened, from his logic-defying vantage point. So it’s as though Creation is as self-contained as a movie to him.

It was not a surprise to George Lucas when Darth Vader revealed to Luke that he’s his father. Because Lucas wrote the screenplay and made this so. Likewise, nothing we do is a surprise to God either. Because when he made Creation, he created us so that we would make the choices we make.

So here’s a question: Does Darth Vader have the free will to not reveal Luke’s paternity?

138

Talk about a bad example! Lucas has been known to go back and “fix” his movies after the fact-does God do this too?

139

Like Skammer said, seeing something doesn’t make it necessary. See below:

This is nicely put. Let me explain my point in similar terms:

If I see X happen, then X has to be happening–BUT that doesn’t mean X had to happen.

If I saw X happen, then X has to have happned–BUT that doesn’t mean X had to happen.

If I will see X happen, then X has to happen–BUT that doesn’t mean X had to happen.

Of course if God’s knowledge of the future is like direct seeing, then what we need to talk about isn’t whether God “will see” or “saw” things happening, but rather, whether God at time X “sees” them happening at time Y, or something like that. But the same logic applies.

If Godpresently sees X happen in the present, then X has to be happening–BUT that doesn’t mean X had to happen.

If God presently sees X happen in the past, then X has to have happened–BUT that doesn’t mean X had to happen.

If God presently sees X happen in the future, then X has to happen–BUT that doesn’t mean X had to happen.

Basically, there are two different senses of “has to” at play here–an epistemological sense and a metaphysical sense.

I agree with all of this, and my view relies on its truth.

This isn’t compatible with what you just said, or at least it’s in strong tension with it. What you said before is that knowledge doesn’t require certainty–the possibility that I might turn out to be wrong doesn’t mean I don’t know something.

But that just means the possibility that I might turn out to be wrong about when my wife will be home doesn’t mean I don’t know when she’ll be home. Indeed, she might get a flat. But that doesn’t change the fact that I know she’ll be home at 2:00. Sure I could be wrong–but it just happens that I’m not.

140

Well, thats the crux of what we’re talking about. We can only see the portion of the wall that’s been built so far, or the timeline up to this point. But because God is outside the timeline he can see it all at once.

I don’t like the movie example so much; because it’s pretty hard to argue that characters in a movie have free will. In reality they can only say and do what the director wants them to.

141

Czarcasm’s joke about this being a bad example is actually exactly on point. When I watch Star Wars, I know what’s going to happen–I know the death star will be destroyed, for example. But that doesn’t mean the movie had to be that way. It could have been different. (It just happens that it won’t be.)

Free will only requires that things could have been different regarding what choices we make.